Frank’s father was a fallen away Seventh Day Adventist. His mother a fallen away Baptist. Instead of spending their lives in healthy pursuits and church functions, Franks parents loved to party. His mother, who did not work except at fun, would have a martini at lunch and then golf. His father, an insurance executive, would have 2 martinis at lunch and then golf with clients. Frank’s parents loved this life style so much that, when Frank was 8, they moved the family to Las Vegas. Party time.
Somehow Frank fell far from the tree. In fact, he seemed to inherit all the guilt his parents might have had if they were not so busy having a ball. Frank wanted to do the right thing. He pressed his own pants for school, studied hard and got straight A’s, kept a neat room with no posters of Led Zeppelin or Frank Zappa on the walls, and generally lived the straight and level. He even joined the Boy Scouts in the mistaken idea that it would be a haven of good behavior. His parents didn’t notice. They were too busy with the community theater production of Bye, Bye, Birdie.
By the time Frank was 15 he was a full blown obsessive compulsive. He went to college and studied chemistry in a perfectly clean dorm room with thick insulation glued to the walls to keep the bad noises out and 3 locks on the door the keep the bad people out. Frank graduated with honors, went to work in the food hygiene business, and lived a life busy with keeping things tidy. Eventually he started his own business, became very successful and lived in an antiseptic modern house with a lot of hard surfaces.
Eventually Frank married Samantha, a fallen away Catholic. He had fallen in love with her because she was, “A handsome woman.” She loved him for his organizational skills and his courteous ways. They lived in a semblance of order and domestic success for many years. But as time passed things changed for Frank. His exceedingly temperate and hygienic life style began to irk Samantha. As a former Catholic High School girl she loved to party, travel, spend time in the woods and the beach, and then party some more. Frank liked to keep things clean and keep his top button buttoned. He wore a tie every day including Sunday while Samantha ran around the house wearing only a smile.
One day Samantha said, “Frank, I am leaving you. You are just no fun.”
Frank, being sensible as well as neat, began to think that his life was just not working anymore. Maybe being organized and clean were not the keys to happiness. Perhaps he was, as his mother had once said, a little wacko. Perhaps Samantha was right. He just wasn’t any fun. So he made an appointment with a very expensive psychiatrist.
Of course the psychiatrist was a challenge right away. Dr. Playa wore a long grey beard, cargo pants, a Hawaiian shirt, and sandals. This pushed a number of Frank’s buttons. But at $250 an hour Frank figured, in his normal way, that the psychiatrist had to know something.
So Frank stayed with it for many sessions. As they went along Frank began to feel more confused, disjointed, and restless. Washing the dishes twice every night was just not satisfying for him anymore. He began to think that ties are just not necessary but couldn’t give them up. Life felt chaotic to him. And this is just what the psychiatrist was after.
One day the psychiatrist said, “Frank, you are making a little progress. You are beginning to see what you have been doing and why it may be making you unhappy. And I think you are ready to go on to the next step of your journey. To really advance I think you may want to make a change.”
“What kind of change?” Frank asked.
“I think you may need to move away from your environment that you try to control to one where you cannot really be in control. I think you should move to Mexico. Baja in fact. This may be the move that finally loosens the grip of your obsessions, a place that mellows your compulsions. You may also learn to have fun.”
As confused and a little crazed as Frank felt, this actually made sense to him. Over the next weeks and many sessions with Dr. Playa he got more used to the idea.
At what turned out to be their last session, Frank said to Dr. Playa, “I will do it. I am moving to Baja.”
Dr. Playa said, “Bueno.”
Frank sold his company and the house of hard surfaces. He bought a nice pickup and headed south. He was in.
Frank traveled slowly down Baja, trying to take it all in. Eventually he stopped in the small town of San Cristobol on the Pacific side of way southern Baja. He found some property that he liked very close to the beach and visited the real estate office, made an offer, and closed the deal. He then waited, while staying at a beach rental, for his paperwork to come. The real estate agent visited him and said, “Your paperwork was lost in Mexico City. Perhaps they will find it, but I think we should reapply.”
Frank said, “Oh.”
The paperwork finally came back after many months and Frank found a Maestro to build him a small palapa roof house. Work was started, the foundation was poured, and the Maestro came to Frank and said, “I must go to La Paz to visit my ailing mother.”
Frank said, “Oh”
A few weeks later the Maestro came back and continued work. Except for Mondays. Mondays are always reserved for hangovers. Except for Saints Days. Saints days were reserved for not working. Except for very hot days. Hot days were reserved for shade. And there was, of course, time off for fishing.
Frank said, “Oh.” The workers heard him say, “Oh” and began to call him Senor Frank O. Over time this became Senor Franko Gringo. The Gringo designation served to decrease confusion. There were 2 others “Francos” in town.
Slowly Franko began to loosen up. He noted that the Maestro did not use a level much except for a long, strange, water level for the foundation. He learned that a good eye was good enough. By the time the house was built Frank o Gringo’s belt began to loosen. Soon he was glad he did not have to wear a tie.
But it was the local food that truly helped Franko become his best self. He was tentative at first, sticking to the more expensive restaurants. He loved the fresh fish, the chile rellenos. But, being a smart though compulsive man, he realized he would have to learn to love all the food in Baja to really to complete his necessary changes.
Franko started with street tacos. Chicken at first. Just a little hot sauce. Slowly he added the Baja condiments. He moved on to carne asada, with pickled onions, avocado crema, and salsa. He then tried a taco with everything including white peppers, chipotle crema, a few slices of pickled jalapeno, spicy salsa. He took one bite. Franko said “Oh”, then looked up at the tin roof above the taco bar, cracked a smile, and said, “Oh Oh Oh Oh!”
Franko moved on to carnitas, cabeza. One day he even tried birria (goat). He was slowly losing his inhibitions. Slowly, one taco at a time.
Coincidentally Franko began to visit the local Catholic Church. As a recovering compulsive and scientist he was not particularly religious. But he found that he loved the colors, the priests’ vestments, the faces of the people, and, in particular, the singing in the Spanish language.
He also took to a local tradition. A margarita or beer while viewing the sunset. Consequentially he tried menudo. That was also an “Oh”. He liked it.
Franko was changing. Baja was changing Franko. For the first time in his formerly tidy life he was relaxing. But Franko knew that he was not quite there. Franko said to himself, “I have one more level to reach in Baja. I have one more hurdle to become my best, my most fun self.”
One evening Franko went to town after dinner time. There were several hot dog stands that set up around 7 pm and were popular with everyone. Franko had particular issues with hot dogs having been, in his earlier incarnation, a food hygienist. But he had heard from everyone, Gringo and Mexican alike, that the local, Mexican style hot dog was a food epiphany not to be missed. Everyone had the same message for Franko. “Franko, you must try a Mexican hot dog. And make it Con Todo. With everything.”
So Franko gathered up all his strength, and, with a little help from 2 margaritas, walked up to the hot dog stand by the vegetable store. Mexicans and Gringos were gathered around, all smiling. The proprietor, Antonio, was making hot dogs con todo as fast as he could. Franko said, “Uno, por favor, con todo.” Antonio rapidly assembled the hot dog, with bun, bacon, crema, onions, jalapenos, a little cheese, served in a paper tray. Franko took his hot dog, paid, and walked across the street as he was a little afraid he would lose courage and he didn’t want to offend Antonio.
Franko looked at the hot dog, looked at Antonio’s hot dog stand across the street and all the smiling people, he looked up at the resplendent Baja stars, and he took a bite. Franko said, “Oh”. Then Franko said, “Oh Oh Oh Oh!” He quickly ate the hot dog, walked across the street, ordered another delicious hot dog “Con Todo” and ate it with the other smiling people by Antonio’s hot dog stand.
Franko finished his hot dog, went out into the street, looked up at the resplendent Baja stars, and yelled for all to hear, “I’m free I’m free I’m free!”
Franko drove home a happy man. He said out loud and to the world at large, “I will always live here and finally be my best self. I will embrace the sunsets, the stars, the colors, the food, the music, the Spanish language, the palm roofs, the snakes and scorpions, the pounding surf and the hurricanes. I will embrace the desert, the palm trees, the rocks and mountains, the cacti, iguanas, and the fish hawks hunting in the surf. I will embrace the scorching sun and the moon rise over the mountains. I will embrace the children playing on the sidewalk, the friendly dogs in front of the super mercados. I will embrace the old men at the bus stop, the children at the orphanage, the store keepers and the gardeners. I will embrace the calendar of saints, the holidays of the revolution and the constitution of Mexico. I will embrace it. All of it.
Then Franko said out loud, “I wonder when the next fiesta will happen in San Cristobol. I think I would like to go. I’m sure I won’t need to wear a tie. Maybe I can learn to dance.”